WEBVTT - DARPA in the 1970s 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.800 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:16.320 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer and 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.840 I love all things tech. And this is our fourth 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.280 episode about DARPA, And after this episode I will switch 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:26.560 to some other topics for a while. But DARPA's history 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:29.880 is incredibly complicated and it's intertwined with some of the 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:34.320 most important technologies we interact with today, So we will 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:37.440 revisit this topic in the future. Will come back and 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.520 continue the story of DARPA. But I did not want 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.599 to turn tech stuff into DARPA stuff, So after this one, 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.000 I figure we'll move on to something else and maybe 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:49.120 in a few weeks we'll pick up where we left 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.639 off today. In our last episode, we covered a lot 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.360 more of the technology that was developed as part of 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:58.480 the efforts in the Vietnam War, and I guess now 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:00.920 it's a good time to remind every in the DARPA, 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:03.600 which back in the sixties was known by its original 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:07.759 name ARPA, was not an R and D facility itself, 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:10.800 not truly. It was more of an agency that would 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:15.720 award contracts to other organizations such as think tanks, universities, 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:20.639 defense contractors, and stuff like that. ARPA slash DARPA would 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:24.520 fund the work and they would also set the expectations, 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:26.840 the guidelines, you know what it was that they were 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.279 hoping to get out of it. But the actual science 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:31.640 and development was going on throughout the United States and 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.080 all these different facilities, and these projects were frequently top 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.000 top top secret, meaning the people who worked on them 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:41.040 would keep it quiet even from their co workers. So 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.040 only people at the top of DARPA really tended to 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.240 know all about the bits and pieces, and sometimes even 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:50.480 the director wasn't fully aware of everything that was going on. 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:54.000 That's how classified some of these projects were. In nineteen 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:58.480 sixty nine, while several ARPA research projects were all tied 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.920 up in the Vietnam War, a group of computer networking 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:07.800 specialists would initiate the original Arpanet Connections. ARPANETT was the 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.480 R and D project to create a means for different 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:14.000 computers to send data back and forth between each other, 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:18.320 even if those computers relied upon different computer languages, and 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.960 even if they were separated by many many miles from 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.480 one another. Part of this required the design and production 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.919 of a brand new technology a router. ARPA had contracted 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:34.040 the company BBN Technologies to build the first routers back 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:36.880 in nineteen sixty eight, and then it took a year. 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:41.160 But on October twenty, nineteen sixty nine, computers at the 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:45.400 Stanford Research Institute, at the University of California and Santa 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:49.239 Barbara and at the University of Utah would connect through 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:53.720 these routers. The first message sent across this three node 0:02:53.919 --> 0:03:00.400 network was low l O. This was actually Christopher Lines 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:04.359 attempt to log in l O g I N to 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:08.160 the s r I computer remotely, but the s r 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:11.600 I computer crashed in mid message, and so low is 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:15.359 all we got. Also, how typical is it that the 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.040 server goes down just when you have something important to 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.480 send to it? It dates all the way back to 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:24.480 the beginning of the ARPA net. But more seriously, this 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:27.480 connection showed that remote computers would be able to send 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:32.000 data back and forth using network communication standards and also 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:37.280 relying upon technologies like packet switching that involves dividing data 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.480 such as the data that represents a file, into smaller packets, 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.680 and each packet has information about where the data is from, 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.400 where it's going, and how it fits into the overall 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.080 collection of information so that you can um when I 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.520 say you, so that a computer can reconstruct the file. 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:57.760 These ideas we get fleshed out over the next several years. 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:00.800 An important moment would happen to night teen seventy four 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:04.280 when vent Surf and Bob con would publish a protocol 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.880 for Packet Network Interconnection, which laid out the principles behind TCP. 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:11.880 But I've done full episodes about ur PONET, so for 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.760 this episode, we'll just remind you that that was something 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:18.520 that was happening at this time, and will also point 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:20.640 out some of the big moments as they tie back 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:23.159 into our PA. So the main purpose of our Bonette, 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:26.000 by the way, that was just to create those methodologies 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:30.200 for computer networks. But one of the applications, perhaps one 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:34.240 of the benefits that ar Bo was really interested in, 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:38.279 was the idea that by creating distributed networks of computers, 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.320 the US could maintain some communications and command structures in 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.680 the event of a nuclear strike. So it's kind of scary, 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:48.640 but it's also really interesting when you think of it 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:53.599 from a communication standpoint. If you have a concentrated computer center, 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:58.360 let's say that you've got a known defense computer at 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:03.120 a university, Well, that is a potential target. If your 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:07.039 adversary knows that there's a computer at that location and 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.960 they know that it's of critical importance, they may target it. 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:13.520 And if they take it down, then you lose it, 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:17.760 and that is another problem for you to have to handle. 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.839 But if you create a means for computers to work 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.680 together across a big network and it spreads all over 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:28.799 the country, you have distributed your computing power significantly. And 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:31.640 even if a strike were to take down part of 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:35.000 that network, because the nature of the network itself, the 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:39.440 rest of it may continue to operate without the section 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:41.880 that has been taken out, which means you still have 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:46.240 some of your communications and control systems in place. So 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.920 it was looked at as a defense measure as well, 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.080 not just a means of having computers be able to 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:56.160 communicate with one another, but it was an added benefit. 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.240 Also in nineteen sixty nine, are PA and the U. 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:03.040 S Army with Bell Labs and the Williams Research Corporation 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:07.560 to develop the w R nineteen turbo fan engine. This 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:12.160 engine acts as the power plant for many different cruise missiles. 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.599 And I actually had to look this up because I 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:18.080 was not familiar with the term power plant when it 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:22.479 comes to things like missiles and jets and airplanes. I 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.120 think a power plant as a place that is used 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:28.320 to generate electricity. But power plant in this context is 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.920 an apparatus that provides power for device. It's not a 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.200 big surprise. And so the power in this particular scenario 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.359 is the power to fly through the air. So not 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:40.760 that mysterious and just threw me for a loop the 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.160 first time I saw it, because despite the fact that 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:45.800 I've been doing this for ten years, that I'm forty 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:48.640 three years old, I don't think I've ever actually encountered 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:54.120 that phrasing before. Meanwhile, while this turbo fan is in development, 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.279 while ar Panetta is coming online, ARPO was also funding 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:01.760 advancements in underwater propulsion systems. So not just this turbo 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.039 fan for going through the air, they were also looking 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.160 at underwater systems. The U. S. Navy had already funded 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.320 work out of the Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:13.760 for a system that was called the Stored Chemical Energy 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:18.200 Propulsion System or SKEPS s c e p S. This 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:22.240 was used to power torpedoes. ARPA would fund subsequent research 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:26.240 to increase the operation duration for those systems to have 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.360 them be long endurance systems in other words, and these 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:35.160 were systems that were relying upon thermal chemical reactions, so 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.880 you would have them burned through what was essentially fuel. 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:41.800 So they had to come up with new ways to 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:45.080 replenish that. The result of this was an improvement over 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.520 the old technology, and it would be incorporated in the 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:53.120 design of the m K fifty torpedo. In anti war 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.680 sentiment was on the rise in the United States. The 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:00.760 Vietnam War conflict had been dragging on for were quite 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:05.440 some time, and the news was just devastating out of Vietnam. 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.040 For one thing, via the Vietnam War was one of 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:12.960 the first real conflicts where reporters on the ground were 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:17.800 able to send back footage and real stories of what 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.800 was going on, and it was not These were not 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:24.960 positive stories. One place where this anti war sentiment really 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:28.720 became apparent was at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne. 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:33.040 There an enormous computer, the fastest in the world at 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:37.120 that time, was the bull's eye of this target. The 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:41.760 computer was called the ILIAC four I L L I 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:47.439 A C four. Professor Daniel L. Slotnick who had called 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.199 John von Neumann, a mentor he had studied under. Von 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:54.400 Neuman was the Arbors scientist in charge of the Iliac 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.040 four project, and his goal was to get the ILIAC 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:00.319 four up to being able to process a billion instructs 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:05.040 per second. It was running calculations related to ballistic missiles 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:07.960 as well as the possibility of using weather modification for 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.400 defense top secret stuff in other words, because it was 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:15.040 a Department of Defense computer running at this university. And 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:19.080 in early nineteen seventy a student reporter was able to 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.880 attend a meeting where they talked about how this computer's 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.080 time was being allocated, and in that story that the 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:29.720 student reporter published, the reporter revealed that one of the 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:32.079 things the computer was being used to do was related 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:36.720 to nuclear weapons. Slot Nick was caught between anti war 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:41.160 protesters and the Department of Defense. He managed to anger 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.760 both sides at the same time when he said he 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.520 took on this project in order to be able to 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:51.640 build the computer. He wanted to have this computer capable 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.760 of running a billion operations per second, and in order 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.040 to do that he was going to need millions of dollars, 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:00.560 and the Department of Defense offered that operat tunity. He 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.320 said that if the Red Cross had done the same, 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:05.160 he would have taken the money from the Red Cross 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:07.240 and had nothing to do with the Department of Defense. 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.959 This had the benefit of taking off both the anti 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:15.800 war protesters and the Department of Defense. Nobody was happy 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:19.480 about this. Tensions continued to grow, and there were more 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:23.680 than a few violent incidents on and around the University 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.720 of Illinois campus in the months following this news report. 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.360 So in June of that year, the university reported to 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:33.400 ARPA that the university was no longer going to be 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:36.320 able to keep this computer safe. The ILIAC four was 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:40.160 in danger if it stayed on campus, and so ARPA 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:44.000 chose to move the computer, which by the way, was huge. 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:47.040 I mean it was several feet long, several feet wide, 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:51.280 weight an enormous amounts, So moving it was not a 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:53.680 an easy option. In fact, just to plug in the 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.360 power supply you would have to have a forklift. So 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:58.720 this was not an easy thing to move. But they 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:00.960 did relocate it. They moved did all the way out 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.440 to California to NASA's Institute for Advanced Computation at the 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:08.240 AIMS Research Center. Now, following this, while you have this 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:12.720 anti war sentiment growing, you have these these violent protests happening. 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:17.520 Senator Mike Mansfield would introduce a bill that would limit 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:21.920 ARPA's projects to those that had a quote specific military 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:26.079 function end quote. ARPA would end up having trouble getting 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:31.400 budget for speculative or bleeding edge research. They were mostly 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:36.760 trying to look into ways of pushing the bleeding edge 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:40.000 of technology out much further than anyone else. In fact, 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.680 the whole goal of ARPA or DARPA as it would 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.240 later be known, was to make certain that the United 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:48.520 States would never be left behind again, that another spot 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:52.400 Nick type event would never happen to the US, that 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.800 the US would always be on the forefront of that technology, 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:59.080 which would mean having to do a lot of exploratory 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:04.960 research and development that you could not easily tie into 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:11.840 active military efforts because you're looking ahead to anticipate problems 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:14.079 that you don't have yet but you think are around 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:19.079 the corner. So this was a real blow to the agency. 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:22.800 In addition, the Secretary of Defense would order ARPA to 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.800 be removed from the Pentagon, so the agency's new office 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:30.040 would be almost three miles away in Arlington, Virginia, and 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:32.280 that would mean that you would no longer have that 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:37.760 very quick, immediate access to Pentagon officials. You weren't working 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.679 side by side with them anymore. No one at ARPA, 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.320 not even the director, was really sure if the agency 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:45.600 was going to be around much longer or not. There 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.880 was a serious worry that the agency might just fizzle 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:54.360 out without a formal conclusion. But the agency wasn't officially 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.120 shut down, and so it would continue to fund R 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.440 and D work in various projects. I'll explain a little 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:02.839 bit more in just a second, but first let's take 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:13.160 a quick break to thank our sponsor. ARFA was also 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.560 funding work to develop low weight mirrors made out of 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:20.440 beryllium for use, and stuff like infrared telescopes and ballistic 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:25.040 missile defense systems and weapons guidance systems ended up being 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:28.199 useful for lots of stuff, especially in space. I mean anytime, 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.200 and I'll mention this again towards the end of this episode, 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.560 anytime you can reduce the amount of weight of the 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.360 components you're sending up into space, you want to do 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:45.280 it because weight essentially equates money. The heavier your payload 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.120 is to get into space, the more expensive it's going 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:49.600 to be to get up there. So this was an 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:53.480 important development not just for these military guidance systems and 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:59.520 defense systems, but for space faring stuff overall. Are but 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.160 also funded development of technologies that would be incorporated into 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:05.800 a new generation of detection equipment that could pick up 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:10.360 Soviet submarine movements. Uh. The project was considered one of 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:14.560 the agency's biggest successes, with the resulting technology being deployed 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.640 in the early nineteen eighties. So again you see how 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:22.520 far ahead the agency is from the production of technology. 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.680 You know, it's several years out from where they're doing 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:27.880 the research and development. They do the r and D 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:30.720 work in the early seventies, it's not really ready to 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.680 be rolled out in an application until the nineteen eighties. 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:38.920 But that was again are PA's argument. They said, we 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:42.359 are necessary to be able to work on these problems 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:45.560 and anticipate these things so that we're ready to go 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.160 within a decade or so. But if we're not doing that, 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:52.960 if we're being reactionary instead of proactive, we're going to 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.440 be behind the game. John Lehman, who was Secretary of 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.760 the Navy in nineteen would end up saying that because 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.760 of these submarine sensors, if a war were to ever 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:06.160 break out between the United States and the Soviet Union, 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:10.040 those sensors would give him the capability to attack all 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.640 Soviet subs that were in deployment within the first five 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:15.720 minutes of that war. So it was considered to be 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:19.240 an incredibly successful technology. It's also indicative of a lot 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:23.800 of DARPA's early work, which focused largely on developing sensor 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:28.240 technology for all sorts of stuff seismic sensors, acoustic sensors, 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:33.440 radioactive isotope sensors, etcetera. So there's also no getting around 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:35.600 the fact that most of the technologies I've talked about 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.840 in these episodes are meant either to defend against or attack, 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.400 or to make attacks more effective. They're all supposed to 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:48.280 be related to military stuff, after all, But this next 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:51.360 bit is sort of a relief from that. In the 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:54.320 early nineteen seventies, are PA funded research into what was 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:58.880 called glassy carbon. This was a foamy sort of stuff 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:01.840 made from pure carbon, and the foam had some really 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.160 interesting features. It was strong, it didn't weigh very much, 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.320 it was chemically inert, and while the original idea was 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:12.120 that the stuff might be really important for numerous electrochemical applications. 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.840 One unexpected benefit was that it became a strong candidate 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:20.880 for material to use in surgical implants like heart valves, 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.920 and so it was. And so this particular ARPA project 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.280 would fund work on a technology that would go on 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.520 to save countless lives, and I think that's pretty cool. 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.080 It's also a good reminder that while some of this 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:36.920 technology was initially intended specifically for a military purpose or 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:41.840 to potentially go into military applications, they often would have 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:47.560 much wider applications than just military ones. In nineteen two, 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:51.640 are PAS Materials Research Projects developed rare earth permanent magnets 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:55.040 capable of operating That means is, you know, maintaining their 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:58.880 magnetism across a range of temperatures that had been identified 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.560 as being military relevant. And it's a pretty big range. 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:06.120 So on the low end is minus fifty five degrees 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:10.399 celsius or minus sixty seven fahrenheit. On the hot end 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.000 of the scale, it's a hundred twenty five degrees celsius, 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:16.520 which is two hundred fifty seven degrees fahrenheit. Now, typically 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:20.879 heating a magnet will reduce its strength of its magnetic field, 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.399 and cooling a magnet down will increase a permanent magnets 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:27.840 magnetic field. So why is that Well, from a very 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:32.520 basic level, a magnet's molecules are largely aligned with one another. 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.119 They're more or less all pointing in the same direction 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:39.119 within the material. So you've got all these molecules that 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.320 are lined up in parallel, and their north poles are 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:44.120 all pointing in one direction, their south poles are all 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.919 pointing in the other direction. Heating a magnet up causes 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.679 molecules to move around. Heating stuff up causes molecular movement, 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.040 and the more the molecules move around, the more that 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:56.920 alignment is compromised. So if you heat up a magnet 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.000 a bit, it starts to lose its magnetic properties. If 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:03.760 you heat it up enough to a point that's called 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:07.879 the Curie point, named after Madam Curry, they will no 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:11.959 longer be magnetic at all. You will have demagnetized your 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.160 magnet by heating it up to this point. It's where 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:16.640 the molecules will be out of alignment and they will 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:20.480 not realign. To do that, though, you'd have to heat 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:23.760 the material a pretty darn hot. The Cury point is 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.920 typically very very very hot for most materials, so for example, 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:32.440 iron that curi point is like seven seventy degrees celsius. 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:37.720 It's one thousand, four hundred seventeen degrees fahrenheit. So this 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:41.400 would mean that it be very rare that you would 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:43.480 ever encounter those kind of situations. The only way you 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:45.560 would do it is if you were doing it on purpose. Typically, 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:48.320 this work was really to make sure that the magnets 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.560 were going to operate according to expectations under hot and 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:58.399 cold conditions. Also in nineteen two, ARPA officially became DARPA, 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:02.280 or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and it would 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:07.400 stick with that name until nine. In three it would 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:11.280 drop the D and become ARPA again for three years, 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.760 and then in nine will become DARPA again. But I 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:18.119 figure we're gonna have a while before we get to 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.520 the nineties, so we'll talk about that when we get there. 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:25.080 Another DARPA funded innovation in the early nineteen seventies was 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:29.840 the development of gallium arsenide as a semiconductor material. So 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:34.000 before the semiconductor electronics relied on these really large component 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:37.680 parts like vacuum tubes, which meant your basic computer would 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:41.719 take up an enormous amount of space. Several researchers developed 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:45.399 semiconductor technologies all the way through the nineteen forties, but 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:48.359 it would take a while for the semiconductor transistor to 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:52.560 become practical. The properties of gallium arsenide allowed it to 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:57.000 host faster transistors running on more power than you could 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:01.159 put on a silicon transistor. Technology would find its way 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.480 into all sorts of applications, though the military was mostly 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:07.920 concerned with its use on GPS kits and precision guided 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:12.719 munitions and other defensive systems. One last bit about the 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.120 Vietnam War and DARPA, because we're getting to the point 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:20.840 where America was getting ready to withdraw from Vietnam. The 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:24.879 war became increasingly unpopular as it stretched on, and for 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:27.439 one thing, in the US, it was never really a 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:30.360 formal war. The US had started out trying to supply 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:33.399 aid in the form of technology and training to the 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.520 South Vietnamese government and military, and this was all in 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:40.400 an effort to stop the growth of communism without getting 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.800 directly involved. That was the goal, was to make sure 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:49.280 that the South Vietnamese forces were capable of handling this 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.720 without the US having to get directly involved. But obviously 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:56.520 that did not pan out. Every year since nineteen fifty 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:58.880 nine had seen an increase in the number of US 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.760 troops sent to the region. In nineteen seventy one, a 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:07.280 former Rand Corporation analyst named Daniel Ellsberg would leak a 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:11.400 collection of documents that collectively were called the Pentagon Papers 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:15.520 to The New York Times. Those documents contained information about 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.400 the US is secret involvement with Vietnam for more than 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:23.520 a decade. This was actually a detailed report that mc 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:27.520 namara had asked the Rand Corporation to put together as 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:29.879 it was going on, sort of an encyclopedia of the 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:34.800 Vietnam War. And the problem was that at this point 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:38.879 this analyst leaked the whole thing to The New York Times, 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:42.320 and it included details on the various ARPA projects that 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:44.919 had happened in that time, and the involvement of the 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:49.320 super elitist group of scientists called the Jason's and the 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:52.879 growing anti war movement was really gaining momentum in the 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:57.080 United States, and many people were outraged not just about 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:00.119 the war, but also about these revelations of how the 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:03.399 US public had been deceived over the years, how the 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:10.359 government had been purposefully misleading the US population, that is, 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:13.560 you know, at least supposed to be represented by this government. 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:18.280 And so it bred this this distrust in the government, 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:21.720 saying you have been doing all the secret stuff, telling 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:24.399 us it's one thing when it's really another. The anti 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:27.440 war sentiment put a lot of pressure on all parties involved. 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:31.320 Eventually it led to ARPA's director, who was a Dr. 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:35.439 Steve J. Lucasik, the seventh director of ARPA at that point, 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:39.400 to sever the ties with the Jason's ARPA was seen 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:41.679 as the R and D tip on the point of 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:46.040 the military industrial complex SPEAR, and since the efforts in 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:49.640 Vietnam didn't prevent the North Vietnamese forces from taking Saigon, 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:53.000 many were beginning to question the usefulness of such an 0:22:53.000 --> 0:22:55.879 agency in the first place. The experience of Vietnam had 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:59.960 an enormous effect on the American psyche. The majority of 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:03.480 Americans felt the war was unethical and a political mistake, 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:07.000 and that it led to the deaths of thousands of Americans, 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:10.160 not to mention millions of others. And it taunt Americans 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:14.040 that the use of force and superior technology would not 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:19.680 necessarily win out over philosophies and ideology. It wasn't realistic 0:23:19.720 --> 0:23:23.560 to say because we are technologically superior, We're definitely going 0:23:23.640 --> 0:23:26.840 to win. Now, all of this is to say that 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:29.919 it would make the post Vietnam War era for DARPA 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:33.520 really challenging. Apart from the name change, which was again 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:36.399 to indicate that from this point forward, the agency was 0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:39.600 only going to pursue projects that met a specific military need. 0:23:40.280 --> 0:23:43.439 All projects related to the Vietnam War were to stop. 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:48.359 Project Agile was called an enormous failure, that all the 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:52.040 attempts to bring research and technology to stop insurgents had 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:56.639 been ineffective at best and counter productive at worst. Several 0:23:56.680 --> 0:24:00.959 previous ARPA directors who oversaw Project Agile throughout the years 0:24:01.359 --> 0:24:05.560 would admit that their efforts were misguided and ineffective. DARBA 0:24:05.680 --> 0:24:10.400 established a new office called Tactical Technology. This office carried 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:12.440 out much of the top secret R and D work 0:24:12.440 --> 0:24:16.000 around sensors, improving the technologies that had been part of 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:19.840 the failed electric fence project, as well as more successful 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:23.360 projects like VILA and the submarine sensors. And then there 0:24:23.440 --> 0:24:26.560 was the move to research technologies that can mask aircraft 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:31.040 from radar systems. New advanced air defense missile systems were 0:24:31.040 --> 0:24:35.200